New Life To Old Thoughts

There comes a time in the life of every writer when he/she sits down at their laptop ready to work, and finds, to their dismay, that their minds are as blank as the page in front of them.

To date, it has not been scientifically proven whether not this affliction is contagious, and reports concerning its possible fatal consequences have not as yet been confirmed.

That said, it is one mangy pest of a nuisance when it hits; and the handful of survivors out there can attest to how doubly hard it is to get rid of. A few cures to it have been found by veteran writers; divine inspiration being one of them, but for some reason, that doesn’t seem to be as common as it once was in the Renaissance era.

Simple inspiration, on the other hand, is a little more common, yet, alas, not common enough in day to day life to send this miserable affliction the same merry way as smallpox. (It was merry for us, at least). Examples of such inspiration would be a movie, a book, a conversation, or a grain of thought that can take root and blossom into something as far away from a blank page as… well, a piece of writing.

But what makes the condition so fiendishly near impossible to root out is the simple fact that it is built around preventing its victim from getting rid of it. How, you ask? This is true because the one, true cure that will always work no matter what… (Yes, it DOES exist!) also happens to be the root cause of the problem in the first place. Simply put, the condition is one where the lack of being able to cure oneself is in fact the problem in itself.

I know that you are by now scratching your head and re-reading the paragraph above for probably the third time wondering if it makes sense, and wondering how in the world this drivel deserves to exist, but worry not; it will all become clear.

What is it, you ask, this ever proven, never failing, one and only miracle cure that can stomp on and squish the crap out of the Dreaded Block?

The answer, simply, is to write.

Now you’ll probably be like, “Aaaaah, now I get it,”

 If you’re not, doesn’t matter. I have just defeated The Block for the second time by talking… about The Block. I’m all pumped up now and not at all bothered about making sense. You probably know what I’m talking about. Don’t know if I can pull it off for a third time, Ladies and Gentlemen, so keep the applause coming.

Still on the subject of The Block, it is with great pride and joy that I can tell you that I have finally cast off the plague like hold it had on me. I’ve started working properly on The Legend of Charezahn at long last, something I kept unwittingly putting off simply because I was never in the mood to draft the opening sequence. But three days ago, I was talking to someone who just might become my publisher in the future; and I thought to myself, what’s keeping me from writing?

Nothing, it turned out. So, for the first time ever, I decided to start writing something far ahead into the story, chapters away from where I was at now. And it helped that this happened to be of my most favorite action sequences in the entire book.

So I started out, expecting to pull away after a few paragraphs; but believe it or not, it reached up, caught me, and wouldn’t let me go.

I was more animated than I had ever been in literally YEARS. Never mind that I was probably going to change the names later on; it didn’t matter that I had started smack in the middle of nowhere, or that the choice of weapons might change when I caught up with the rest of the story; I just fell into my zone, and the words flowed. Oh, did the words flow.

And by The Cure, it was beautiful.

Charezahn lives and breathes. It is growing every day, 2000 words at a time. And to be honest, I kinda feel like I’m trying to start a fire at midnight in the cold Alaskan wilderness. There’s wood all around me, but the flame isn’t catching… so I’m feeding it a stick, one piece at a time.

Grow, baby, grow.

I know my own limits; but I still set myself to finish the entire novel by the end of this year or sooner. I might even be able to do it, provided I stay away from the all the TV series, the movies, and the books. And even though that seems about as likely as Fox deciding to work together with Marvel Studios to share the Marvel Comics Universe, I like my chances.

And right now, it’s all in bits and pieces that make no sense out of context. But as soon as I start stitching it all up, I’ll post it online in chapters, and leave the link hanging here. I’ll welcome your comments and criticisms, as always.

The Iron Writers have helped and inspired me more than I can say. And all the people on Facebook, and the people off Facebook; every one of you who talks to me… thank you. You guys make it all worthwhile.

Keep being the best

Matt W. Weaver